Hola, my name is Muhammad At-Tauhidi, and I am the founder of One Month Spanish.
As you might have guessed, I am not a native Spanish speaker. So what do I know about teaching Spanish? Well, in 2013, I was invited to spend a year living in Chile, as part of startup accelerator program sponsored by the Chilean government (Startup Chile). Although, I couldn’t speak Spanish before being accepted into the program, I had taken a few Spanish courses in high school and college and figured I would pick it up quickly once I was there. Besides, I had always heard that immersion is the best way to learn to learn a language, right?
It turned out that I was in for a very rude awakening. Months after arriving in Santiago, I was still unable to string together a basic conversation in Spanish, and most of my attempts to talk to girls or make friends had ended in frustrating failure. Like most people who learn Spanish in high school or college, even though I had studied lots of grammar and vocabulary, I had never learned how to actually speak Spanish. Although I new lots of words on paper, when it came to real conversation, everything was still a blur.
Through lots of trial an error, I eventually stumbled on a a specific technique that rapidly improved my ability to hear and recognize oral Spanish. After applying this technique diligently for a few weeks, I found that I was suddenly able to have meaningful conversations with native Spanish speakers. I wasn’t yet “fluent”, and my grammar was less than perfect, but I was finally able to start making friends, and do all the things that I dreamed of being able to do in a foreign country.
I created One Month Spanish to help travelers, foreign exchange students, and other motivated language learners looking to develop real-world language skills. I hope it helps you as much as it has helped me.
Nos vemos pronto!
Muhammad At-Tauhidi, Founder
One Month Spanish
